Thursday, October 5, 2017

So, you're playing D&D and you're fighting some orcs. All the orcs are armed with feather dusters, so they actually incapable of harming anyone. And your DM doesn't give XP for combat, so they'll yield 0 xp upon death.

This combat is a waste of time. You're just rolling dice until the orcs die.

The encounter is shit because the encounter has no impact.

Impact: the ability to permanently change the game. The opposite of impact is fluff.

Impact correlates with how your players care. If no one's invested in the outcome of this encounter, it's hard to have fun. I think a lot of DMs make the mistake of crafting low-impact encounters.

I'll start by talking about combat encounters, but a lot of this applies to non-combat encounters as well.

Yes, depleting their spells/HP/potions is a form of impact. It's low impact, almost by definition. We can do better.

In a lot of published adventures, the fights are strongly stacked in favor of the PCs, who usually don't have to spend many resources to win. The only reason to run a combat like this is to make the players feel cool/powerful (not something I recommend designing for--it happens on its own, when it's deserved) or to teach them the rules (and there are better ways to do this than wasting everyone's time with a fluff encounter).

Killing Characters

For most players, this is the most impactful thing that can happen. It's also shitty when it happens. We can have a talk about how much lethality is desirable on another post, but the point I want to make is. . .

High risks make people pay attention. For this reason, difficult combats are necessarily high-impact.

Dear non-OSR readers: this is one reason why OSR folks are always advocating for potentially lethal combat. Not because we enjoy rolling new characters, but because the combats are more significant. It's the same reason why lots of sandbox DMs are okay with players deposing kings, burning down cities, and basically just making a mess of things.

I'm not gonna argue that you should make all of you combats brutally difficult. Easy combats have their place. But if you are going to make an easy combat, it needs to be impactful in a different way (see also: the rest of this post).

It's entirely possible for a high-lethality combat have everyone attentive, stressed, and bored. Being trapped in a room with a wight, and no way to hurt it, rolling dice for 20 turns while all of your characters die inevitably. (This is no different from the feather duster orcs, really.)

If you find yourself in a low-impact combat, hand-wave it. Last time I played D&D, my players ambushed three old (non-magical, level 0) priests. Combat took 30 seconds because I just let the player's narrate how they won.

Mutating Your Character Sheet
When I say "attack all parts of the character sheet", this is what I'm talking about.
This is a pretty broad category. Yes, it includes actual mutations. This is me telling you that giving the orcish raiders an Axe of Mutation is a great idea.

You can destroy items (rust monster), drain levels (wight), etc. (PSA: big negative effects like that should be telegraphed and players given a chance to avoid the combat. Don't ambush players with wights.)

You can also mutate items, mutate spells, turn gold coins into copper coins, turn copper coins into silver coins, permanently blind a PC, permanently give a PC the ability to see in the dark, mess with stats, mess with skills, steal an item out of their inventory, burn all the scrolls in their inventory with dragonfire, change their sex, give them curses.

And remember, all of these effects should be telegraphed before you smack the party with them. The idea is to get the party invested in the outcome by raising the stakes, so it doesn't work if the players don't know the stakes.

Angels who can forcibly convert your character to their religion. Since it takes a few "hits" before the PC converts, they have time to run away (which is the point of HP, really).

Nymphs who convince the party to live with her for a two years can also have a pretty big impact on the game. Players should know the risk before they seek out a nymph.

PROTIP: Increase player investment by having enemies wield the cool item in combat; don't just leave it in their pocket for them to discover afterwards.

It doesn't even have to be magical. Like, give one of the orcs a whip with an eagle claw on the end of it, and an eagle skull on the handle. Fucking awesome.

Or they have crazy potions. Permanently lose a point of Con to enter a super-rage. Make sure at least one orc drinks the potion during combat, with more vials visible inside his vest, so the players know what they get if they win.

Or like, the next time the players crit on the orc, the orcs coin purse rips open and coins spill out all over the floor (in addition to the regular effects of the crit). Show players what the stakes are.

Gaining XP

Yes, this is a thing that exists.

When I used quest XP in my Pathfinder games, I used to give the players a handout with all the available quests on it, and the associated rewards. I kind of roll my eyes at that sort of thing now, but it accomplished the goal of showing what the stakes were.

Relates to Other Parts of the Map

This is what I mean when I say "random encounter doesn't mean unconnected encounter".

Maybe the really well-dressed orc is the chieftain's son, and asks to be ransomed back when he surrenders. (Random encounters need to be connected to things outside of themselves.)

Maybe they're saving the king's life. If they lose this combat, the king will be assassinated.

This is also a chance for your players to show their values. Let them have the ability to change the game map, and make sure they know it.

Information

Maybe the fact that one of the orcs are in the castle at all means that someone probably smuggled them in. . . but why?

Maybe one of the orcs has an incomplete map of the nearby dungeon.

Maybe the orcs promise to give you the password to the Wyvern's Tower if you let them escape.

They can also convey setting information, or useful information about the dungeon.

The orcs have their hands tattooed black, indicating that they've trained in Ungra, specialize in killing mages, and were hired at a steep cost.

One of the orcs is carrying lockpicks and is covered in recent acid burns. (Nearby lock is trapped with acid hoses.)

Fluff is Okay

There's nothing wrong with a fun combat. Fluff has its place.

Respite: Easy combats can be a nice respite after a recent meat-grinder.

Power Trip: Maybe you're playing with ten-year-olds and the birthday boy needs a magic sword.

Ambiance: A corpse being eaten by hungry ghosts can really set the mood. (No useful information was learned, no real interaction except observation).

Personal Goals: There's no benefit to it, but maybe one of the PCs swore an oath to humiliate every bard they came across. Whatever. It's important to their character concept.

Comedy: Fighting drunk goblins in the middle of a pig stampede.

Just remember that you can raise the impact without raising the difficulty. Maybe give one the goblins a red-hot branding iron. Same damage, but now the character has a QQ permanently seared into their rump.

-Doesn't change the game.
-Can still be interesting (e.g. you meet peacock-man being devoured by hungry ghosts; he has nothing interesting to say or give).
-Can be good for an ego trip.

Using Impact Wrong

Impact is not the same thing as fun. Use it in ways that your players react to. Maybe they're scared of dying and despise lethal combat. Maybe they want to be heroes and respond really well to civic heroics, such as king saving.

Just be mindful of impact the next time you throw a random group of 3d6 goblins at your party. Don't let it be just fluff.

Monday, October 2, 2017

There is a voice crying out in the wilderness, babbling nonsense with locust-stained lips, scratching chaos into the dirt beneath her. This is SCRAP PRINCESS, who is shunned by the WISE and feared by the BRAVE. Her writings consist of nothing but NONSENSE and THE EGGS OF GAWPING SERPENTS. Wise men shun both, lest they be afflicted by POLYPS and SNAKEBITE.

//////

The opposite of a dragon is a wurm. Like dragons, they are also hoarders and destroyers, but they tend to seek the metaphysical, rather than base metals.

Wurms are brothers to whales. They are most closely related to certain breeds of malformed horses native to the Londeep Swamp, which feed on algae and bird's eggs.

They are hairy, limbless things, like pink-skinned slugs or shaggy worms. They do not fly, but instead burrow. Their features vary, but in most cases their faces tend towards the mammalian, and sometimes even the simian. They have flattish faces, with forward facing eyes, and their teeth are often blunted. The smallest of them is a furlong in length.

Its skin is bright gold, and it weighs 484,000 lbs. Its expression has been described as fatuous. It enjoys eating elephants, and this is how it does it. First, it breaks the elephant's legs. Then it sucks on the elephant for about 18 hours, like a gobstopper, until the elephant's skin comes off.

It lives in the Tau Solen, where it churns the rivers into pinkish foam.

The Laughing Wurm consumes joy. That is why it is so happy. All creatures in its aura must make a Charisma check each turn. On a failure, they lose 1d6 Wisdom. If their Wisdom reaches 0, the PC stops and sits down, overcome by regret, nostalgia, and nihilism. Wisdom lost in this way is recovered as soon as they leave the aura. They regain 1d6 Wisdom if an ally dies or is swallowed (first time only) or if something motivating occurs (first time only). Creatures in the aura are unable to benefit from it.

The Laughing Wurm is surrounded by 2d6 despondent ibises (1 HD each). Initially inert, they will attack once they wurm is bloodied.

When the Laughing Wurm is killed all creatures in 1000' must save or celebrate together for the next 1d20 hours. Expect to spend the time dancing with wolves and kissing ibises.

The Heart of the Laughing Wurm is a tiny, shriveled grey thing the size of a fist. It can be used to make a make any sentient creature suicidal. (50' range, creature saves, failture means that they will attempt to kill themselves in the next 24 hours. The heart is not used up by a successful save.)

The Verdant Wurm is bright, grassy green, except for its teeth (which are white) and its gums (which are red). Its expression has been described as incredulous. It enjoys impersonating a grassy hill, something that it is very bad at, since all the adjacent hills will be dead. It weighs 660,000 lbs.

The Verdant Wurm consumes life. That is why it is so vibrant. All creatures in the aura lose 1d6 HP per turn (half on a successful save). For each HP lost in this way, a butterfly is born from the Verdant Wurm's back. They attack as a swarm.

The Verdant Wurm begins surrounded by 2d6 butterflies. They are not true insects, and lack mouthparts or reproductive organs. They have only a single leg, like a razor blade.

When the Verdant Wurm is killed, its stomach spills open and a forest grows explosively. All creatures in 1000' must save or take 1d20 damage from being speared, tossed, or crushed.

The Heart of the Verdant Wurm can be used to restore a creature to life. Creatures restored to life in this way will return larger (+1 Str), dumber (-1 Int), and with shaggy green hair.